The Eagles defense is the best reason to believe they can win the Super Bowl

BALTIMORE — When you watch him from the distance and comfort of the press box, Lamar Jackson seems less like a quarterback and more like the quickest, flashiest point guard on the playground. At all times, he knows what he is doing and knows that he is capable of doing it. He doesn’t throw a football so much as he flicks it, sometimes sidearming it as if he were a second baseman who had just fielded a routine grounder. And whenever a prospective tackler or two get too close to him, he often slips and scoots and sidesteps them and turns what should have been a sack into a scramble of several yards. It is breathtaking to witness. It must be maddening to try to defend against it.

And yet ... the Eagles did. They did that and more throughout the most important and impressive victory of their season so far, a 24-19 win over the Baltimore Ravens in which they neutralized Jackson — arguably the most dynamic quarterback in the NFL — and the entire Ravens offense. Which was only the best in the league before Sunday.

This was as good a defensive performance as anyone could have expected or hoped for from coordinator Vic Fangio’s group. Baltimore entered the game second in the league in points and first in total yardage. Jackson, who already has been named the NFL’s most valuable player twice in his career, has a shot at winning the award again; he led the league in touchdown passes, yards per attempt, passer rating, and Total Quarterback Rating. Derrick Henry had 1,325 rushing yards — only Saquon Barkley had more, and he still does — and was averaging 6 yards a carry.

And yet … the Eagles held the Ravens to one touchdown, in the first quarter, and two field goals until the closing seconds. Jackson ripped off a meaningless 40-yard run and threw a meaningless TD pass in the final seconds; otherwise, the Eagles contained him. He still made his share of remarkable plays, but he finished with fewer than 240 passing yards, and the Eagles sacked him three times, including a critical one by Jalen Carter that cost the Ravens 13 yards and forced them to settle for a field goal.

“I have the mindset that nobody can juke me out,“ said Carter, who, despite facing incessant double teams Sunday, had three tackles-for-loss and hit Jackson twice. ”I see what he can do. I see all the film. But he had an opportunity to try to break that tackle, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. I talked about it all week: ‘If he tries to escape on me, I’m not letting him go.’”

Henry gained 82 yards on 19 attempts — a solid day, but nothing spectacular, nothing like what he’d been doing over his previous 12 games. The signature sequence from this game, in fact, was the sight of him catching a pass in the flat and Eagles rookie defensive back Cooper DeJean — who, at 21 years old, 6 feet tall, and 198 pounds, is nine years younger, three inches shorter, and 49 pounds lighter than Henry — jackhammering him to the ground.

“He looks small,” Eagles linebacker Zack Baun said of DeJean, “but he plays big.”

If there’s a reason to think that the Eagles can return to the Super Bowl, their defense is that reason. It is quite something to see how different they are this season compared to last — compared to that utter mess that they were under Sean Desai and Matt Patricia. Fangio’s experience and intelligence are the most obvious and substantial change, but he isn’t the only factor that has made the Eagles that much better on that side of the ball.

Howie Roseman has reshaped the entire defense. The players are better, and the unit is, on the whole, younger. The acquisitions of Baun, DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson and the development of Jalen Carter, Nakobe Dean, Jordan Davis, and Nolan Smith provide a physicality and playmaking ability that the Eagles simply did not have in 2023. They tackle better now. They create more opportunities for turnovers. They’re allowing fewer yards than any team in the NFL, and there’s a pattern forming now: They might allow a team to move the ball on them or score through the first couple of possessions, but they stifle that team from there on out.

“We’re just sticking to the plan and letting the game unfold because everybody knows the first five to six minutes of the game is hot on both sides,“ Gardner-Johnson said. ”We just know we’ve got to keep that fire in place, keep it in front of us, don’t let it spread like wildfire. We understand that it’s not the end of the world. We’ve got four quarters to play. One touchdown is not going to win the game."

There is growing around the Eagles now a feeling of inevitability, a sense that, unless an opponent knocks them out early, unless an opponent builds an insurmountable lead and builds it quickly, the Eagles will wear that team down over the course of a full 60 minutes. The Eagles spotted the Ravens a nine-point lead Sunday, and that feeling was tangible here at M&T Bank Stadium: Yeah, the Ravens are up by two scores, but they should be up by more. This won’t be enough. It wasn’t. Barkley and the Eagles’ terrific offensive line started to assert themselves. Jalen Hurts again didn’t make a critical mistake. And the Ravens didn’t score enough after that early burst. They were never going to.

You want to believe in this Eagles team? You want to believe that this 10-2 record and eight-game winning streak aren’t the mirages that last year’s 10-1 start was? Go ahead, because there’s no reason at the moment to doubt this defense.